Ep 30: Time in a Bottle

As we finish our exploration of the first Key Element of Spiritual Formation, we further consider how a disciple uses Time.  Time doing what?  And with whom?  Are we formed simply by spending more time in the traditional spiritual disciplines, or are there other relationships and activities with which we should be intentionally engaging? 

TRANSCRIPTION

Time in a Bottle

Soil and Roots explores spiritual formation – our community journey to become more like Jesus.

However, we live in an age of the “Great Omission.”  We seem to be struggling to make disciples. Plus, we face three other problems: The Forgotten Kingdom, the Discipleship Dilemma, and the Formation Gap.  The good news all of those can be turned around.

We’re primarily focused on some very deep topics central to discipleship: the unconscious ideas in culture and our hearts that govern us, and how these hidden ideas interact with our desires. Admittedly, this is a non-traditional way of exploring discipleship – mining our hearts for these mysterious things called ideas. These ideas and desires may or may not align with our belief statements, our doctrine, or our stated worldview.

As we become spiritually formed in Christ, a large part of our journey is uncovering not only the presence of these unconscious ideas but also the reasons why they’re in our hearts.

This is what Jesus did all the time. He invited those around Him to explore their hearts so that they might draw closer to Him.  And it had a lot to do with why He spent so much time giving the Pharisees such a hard time.  They understood their belief system; they understood doctrine.  But they refused to give Jesus the depths of themselves – their hearts.  And they were entrapping others into a system of beliefs that had no impact on their hearts. They were motivated by power and authority, not surrender and humility.

You’re listening to Season 3, and it’s all about the third Primary Problem, the Formation Gap.

We often consider that what we assume today about “church” – our unconscious ideas about “church” – doesn’t always bear much resemblance to what the New Testament assumed and embodied as “church.”

The New Testament idea of church is far more similar to what we’re calling an Immersive Community of Formation, or a Greenhouse, compared to what most of us experience as “church” today. You can find much more information on Greenhouses on the website.  And we’re going to explore them in detail down the road this season.

We’re pondering that New Testament communities had far more in common with other normal, highly formative experiences, such as early childhood, marriage, and college, than they do our modern church institutions and experiences.

Does that mean we stop going to church? No. We love our pastors and our churches. I am suggesting that, despite our good intentions, we are missing out on what genuine Christian community and discipleship are, and we’re suffering for it.

We sometimes feel disconnected, lonely, isolated, even in church.  Does anyone truly know us?  Does anyone want to truly know us? Is there more to the Christian life than what I’m experiencing?

As Christians living in post-modernity, we’re experiencing an extraordinary gap in our efforts to become like Jesus – we call it the Formation Gap. And many people don’t even know it. It’s just the air we breathe.

We’re finishing up our exploration of the first Key Element of Formation today: time.

Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

To be Formed or Malformed, That is the Question

Human hearts require certain things to be formed or, unfortunately, malformed.  We call these things the Five Key Elements of Formation.

Our hearts require increasingly complex instruction, even as adults.  We look to be instructed about what to do, who we should be, and how we should act.  And like every grade school student, that instruction needs to start with the basics and, over time, slowly and gently take our hearts into deeper and deeper ideas and truths.

Our hearts require transparency and intimacy.  Our most desperate need, our most desperate longing, is to be known by someone who pursues us, who secures us, who loves and accepts us even when we’re messy and broken and wounded and angry.  That type of longing can only be met through transparency and intimacy.  To be known means we lay ourselves bare, with the good and bad, and to be in relationship with those who do the same. Those who seek our goodness. Those who are trustworthy.

Our hearts require immersive community.  Safety, trust, acceptance, and formation can only occur in a community of other people who embody these characteristics.  If we’re isolated and alone, or we’re immersed in a community that does not seek our goodness, our hearts will be formed into darkness.  Isolation and dark communities produce the same thing: hearts that are mistrustful, wounded, abandoned, numb, frantic, uncertain, and cold.

Our hearts require specifically defined habits to be formed.  We are integrated beings living in an integrated world.  And as we’ll discover, habits are not just what we do.  Habits are deeply embedded patterns across all eight of our Heartview Indicators: our thinking, emotions, health, behaviors, relationships, words, and time-and-money use.

Habit-forming is one of the most difficult things to do – just ask anyone who makes New Year’s Resolutions every year.  They’re difficult because we normally don’t look at them holistically.  And we normally don’t look at our own stories to help us determine why we have the habits we do, and why they may be difficult to change.

And our hearts require intensive time.  By “intensive,” I don’t just mean the quantity of it, I mean the quality of it. The intentionality of it.  Time immersed in what and with whom.

As we contemplate forming or joining these types of communities, what sorts of things characterize them in terms of time? We’ve talked about three points so far.

Time in Relationship

In episode 27, we explored time and formation through the lens of modern neuroscience.

Now, for some Christians, looking at anything but the Bible to understand humanity and formation makes them nervous.  I’ll just remind us that God wrote us two books: special revelation and general revelation.  Both reveal God.  God wrote us the Bible, and He wrote us creation (or rather He spoke it).

Because of our current post-Enlightenment, unconscious, somewhat shallow ideas of anthropology, modern Christianity tends to forget about or ignore God’s second book.

Both books were written by the same Author.  Both books line up quite nicely and are in complete uniformity.  You find scores of references to God’s second book in His first book. The Bible is chock full of stories, parables, references, metaphors, types, themes, and allusions to creation and culture.  The Bible assumes the reader has a deep understanding of creation.

And God’s second book, creation, is chock-full of invitations to read God’s so-called “first book.”  The wonder and majesty of the human being, our capacity for thought and morality, a hummingbird, a sunrise, or a symphony provoke us to further explore the Author of Creation.  And, fortunately, He wrote His first book so that we may get to know Him better.

The Bible is not the only source of truth. 2+2=4 does not appear in the Bible.  The Bible is the final arbiter of truth. The Bible is not our only authority. Parents, bosses, governments – those are all valid authorities. Though the Bible is our final authority.

So, to study modern neuroscience to better understand spiritual formation is a worthy, good, Kingdom-oriented exercise.  And we should always expect science to completely and seamlessly affirm and align with the Bible.  That’s certainly what the fathers of modern science assumed.

The key point from Episode 27 was a quote from a neuroscientist and his pastor friend.

They wrote, “…our right brain governs the whole range of relational life: who we love, our emotional reactions to our surroundings, our ability to calm ourselves, and our identity, both as individuals and as a community. The right side manages our strongest relational connections (both to people and to God) and our experience of emotional connectedness to others.  And character formation…Character formation, which is a primary responsibility of the church, is governed by the right brain, not the left brain.”[1]

The first point we’ve learned so far about time in spiritual formation is this: Our spiritual formation in Christ is primarily about the time we spend in relationships. 

What relationships?  In relationship to God, but also others, ourselves, and creation.  Time in intentionally cultivating deep, abiding, trusted relationships. Emotional relationships.  Sometimes messy relationships.

In the last episode (Episode 29), we explored two other points related to time as a key element of formation.

Being Present in Time

Because of modern civilization’s dependence on clocks, watches, productivity, and the constant pressure to be busy (because otherwise we obviously aren’t good stewards of our time), we struggle to be present in time. We are constantly multitasking and focusing on the next to-do, event, meeting, or piece of entertainment.

So, we miss all kinds of opportunities to be present in our four relationships.  We struggle to hear God’s voice.  We have a conversation with our spouse, but we aren’t present.  It’s not that we don’t hear their words – we don’t hear their hearts, which requires a whole different type of presence.

Even in small talk with friends, we miss opportunities to pursue, to seek their goodness, and to heal.  Being present in seemingly random conversations sometimes yields wonderful opportunities for restoration and the Kingdom.

And in relation to ourselves?  Well, we’d rather not engage in Heartview.  We’d rather not know and explore the desires and hidden ideas in our hearts. So, we keep ourselves busy with distractions, even religious ones, so we avoid engaging in our stories, entering into necessary suffering, and being courageously curious when our hearts are screaming for healing.

More Dialogue, Less Monologue

The third point we’ve explored about time: more dialogue and less monologue, particularly in relation to God’s Word.  As humans, we’re formed far more effectively through interaction, relationship, debate, and honest discussion than we are simply listening to lectures.

Our key quote on this point is from Clyde Reid.

‘The adult members of churches today rarely raise serious religious questions for fear of revealing their doubts or being seen as strange. There is an implicit conspiracy of silence on religious matters in the churches. This conspiracy covers up the fact that the churches do not change lives or influence conduct to any appreciable degree.”[2]

If he’s correct, there’s no better explanation of the Formation Gap.  If the modern church does not change lives or influence conduct, that’s the opposite of a truly formative community.

Many of our churches haven’t created a public, affirming culture where we can ask questions publicly, honestly express doubts, offer counterpoints, or engage in dialogue about the sermon or other teachings.  The underlying assumption is this: we teach, you listen.

Now we might say, “Well, we dialogue in Bible study in small groups.”  I hope we do, but it depends on our group’s culture, purpose, and leadership.  If we go to a Bible study and the study guide’s questions simply ask us to regurgitate the text, that’s not very formative.  We may walk away knowing more about Jesus, but are we becoming more like Jesus?

How many of us sat in high school or college and memorized the material just long enough to answer the question on the test, only for the information to be gone forever afterward?

If your Bible study or small group leader intends for the class to help form you more and more into the likeness of Jesus, there will be space and openness for you to share your story, ask questions, express doubts, challenge the material, and even disagree with someone politely and winsomely.

By the way, I’ll just note that if your church or Bible study decides to adopt a more dialogue-centric approach, not only should the congregation be invited to interact with a sermon or message in appropriate ways, the pastor or teacher should also be invited to ask questions.

Just curious: do you think we’d pay more attention to the sermon if we knew the pastor might ask us a question or two directly after his message?  Hmm…

So, to summarize, three ways people in a formative community treat time:

1. Discipleship is time in intentional relationships. We cultivate and celebrate discipleship as a primarily relational journey, which requires substantial time in all four relationships.
2. Present in Time. We’re always moving towards being present, spiritually attuned, and gently pursuing, in our relationships with God, others, self, and creation.
3. More dialogue, less monologue. We intentionally cultivate an environment where doubts, questions, concerns, and polite dissent are welcomed and encouraged in our time exploring both of God’s books, primarily His first.

As we finish up our exploration of time this episode, let’s get a bit more practical.

In the last episode, I quoted several comments from Dallas Willard. About discipleship, he remarked, “Disciples are simply people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus.”

I’ve said that a disciple is someone who reorders or reprioritizes their life so that becoming more like Jesus is their “first thing.”  We seek first the Kingdom and its King.

What would it mean to revise our affairs, or reorder some things, so that our time was oriented in a way so becoming more like Jesus is our first thing?

Let’s take a look at this in light of the four relationships God has placed us in. And let’s start with our relationship with God.

Time with God

How we relate to God and how we spend time with God have been explored and written about for centuries.   There are thousands of books, teachings, and devotionals about how we may relate with God.

We probably know about how prayer, the Word, fasting, meditation, Scripture memory, confession, the role of the Holy Spirit, and corporate worship are essential ways we relate to God so that we grow to love Him more.  We call most of these “spiritual disciplines.”

We could argue that we’ve lost the essence and practice of many of these spiritual disciplines today.  But anything I would add here would simply be repeating what far smarter and more thoughtful pastors, writers, and teachers have already said over the years.

So, I’ll just note one reminder about how our relationship with ourselves impacts our relationship with God.

If we want to develop and grow in God, He invites us to enter into our own stories as part of that journey.  Dealing authentically and kindly with our stories shapes how we relate to God, because our hearts translate those stories into all our relationships, including with Him.

If you read the Bible and feel anger or loneliness or condemnation or nothing, it may be time to take a look at your story. If you pray and pray but can’t seem to sense God’s presence, it may be time to dive into your story.

If you don’t feel emotionally connected to God (who created our emotions), it may be because of your story.

If you struggle to relate to God as He primarily reveals Himself in both of His books – as a loving, faithful, good Father – your struggle may have nothing to do with the amount of time you spend in prayer, or how often you fast, or how many verses you’ve memorized.  It may be your gentle Father’s way of inviting you back into your story so He can meet you there. So that He may heal you.

In Anatomy of the Soul, Curt Thompson writes, “You cannot know God if you do not experience being known by Him…And the degree that you are known by Him will be reflected in the way in which you are known by other people.  In other words, your relationship with God is a direct reflection on the depth of your relationship with others.”[3]

This is why we may be discerning some wounds or brokenness in our hearts through how we relate to God’s books.  Or in our prayer time.  Or when we sit in church.

If your highly formative earthly relationships, whether parents, caregivers, siblings, teachers, mentors, or spouses, did not embody kindness, gentleness, a desire to know you and your heart, a desire for your goodness, your heart assumes that same type of broken relationship with God.  And coming to embrace the love of the Father may not be as simple as reading Bible verses about Him.  It’s something that needs to be experienced, explored, and, in many cases, may involve some grieving.

Ecclesiastes reminds us: “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting.”^[4]

Relationship with Others

As we contemplate how to form communities like Greenhouses today, who else should we spend time with so that our hearts take on more of the likeness of Jesus?

This is probably common sense, but spending intentional, substantial time with people who think, act, speak, desire, and love a lot like Jesus.  People who remind us of Jesus.

They have a quiet confidence. Not arrogance, but confidence.  They know who they are and whose they are.  They probably don’t walk around quoting Scripture all the time.  They probably aren’t upfront or in the spotlight; they may prefer to stay behind the scenes.  They may be a leader in your church, but they may not.

These are people who, when they’re with you, are with you.  They’re present.  They pursue you in the best sense of the word.  They intentionally seek what’s good for you, even if it hurts a little bit.  They probably don’t tolerate it when you say, “I’m fine,” and they have an uncanny knack of asking the right questions at the right time.  They see you.  Not just the outside you, but the inner you.

They certainly aren’t perfect, but they are…different.  People who are deeply in love with Jesus and are becoming more like Him are just a bit different from most of us.

I don’t want to take this metaphor too far, but there is a sense that discipleship is more about what’s caught than taught.  We’ve heard that phrase in parenting and education for decades.

In The Master Plan of Discipleship, Robert Coleman discusses the formalization of the worship service over time and compares it to the New Testament church.  He touches on the point I made earlier about dialogue vs. monologue, then goes further, relating it to community and relationships.

In discussing New Testament gatherings, he wrote, “Throughout the meeting, ample opportunity seems to have been given for personal participation.  Each believer was free to exercise his or her spiritual gift, ask questions, and share any concern, as the Spirit might lead.  Officers in the local fellowship doubtless provided some direction to the service, but the worshippers were not dependent on them.

Worship patterns gradually became more formalized toward the close of the first century…This is not to disparage formality or to belittle the need for defining doctrine, for an increasingly complex body must have some stabilizing order. But in the formalizing process, we must preserve the fellowship that gives heart to the structure.”[5]

Later on, he writes, “Reading the Acts, one gets the impression that the Christians just enjoyed doing things together.  In these casual relationships, probably more than in their gathered meetings, they learned what it meant to follow Christ in the daily routine of life.”[6]

He concludes, “The spiritual life of the Christian community clearly is interwoven with their continuous interpersonal association.”[7]

So, time with others in daily life. Time with people who remind us of Jesus, in addition to weekly or official gatherings.

Perhaps in our modern, transient times, this is the most challenging and vexing aspect of the key element of time.  How do we find the time to spend time with people who love like Jesus so that we “catch” what it means to love like Jesus?

If we struggle with anxiety, who might we spend time with who will engage our story and who isn’t very anxious? Someone with whom we experience calm, confidence, and trust.

If under the surface we’re fearful, who might we spend time with who will engage our story, and who isn’t full of fear?  Someone with whom we experience stability, certainty, and trust.

It’s a matter of thinking through our relationships and praying about who in our circle reminds us of Jesus. Again, it’s not necessarily about theological knowledge or gifts of the Holy Spirit, emotional reactions in worship services, or titles or who in your church has the most successful business.

Who in your circle pursues you for your goodness? Who invites you into a deeper relationship?  Who takes you as you are, isn’t trying to manipulate or coerce you?  Isn’t using you, isn’t exploiting you?  Rather, they invite you to become more like Jesus simply because they love Jesus and they love you.

Those are the types of people we all need to be around…a lot. Are there ways we can creatively reorder our lives so that we invite these saints into our world and do some portion of life together?

I know – it’s pretty radical compared to our rugged individualistic, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” “I gotta get to my next meeting” lifestyle.  Reordering our lives to consistently be in the presence of loving saints isn’t easy.

Also, I’ll just note that part of the reason we don’t seek out time with these types of wonderful folks is that we’re so trained to “go.”  Instead of viewing the Christian life as one of deep fellowship, we feel guilty if we aren’t doing something, going somewhere, or giving ourselves away to someone.

We tend to forget certain parts of the Great Commission.  When Jesus says to “make disciples,” we’re discovering that’s a time-saturated, fantastic relational journey in community.  Overseas missions are wonderful, but don’t forget the mission in your marriage or your family or your church or on your street or in your own heart.  And we can’t forget the very last thing Jesus said before He ascended was a reminder that He is with us.  He is present.  He abides.  He dwells.  The very last thing He said is a beautiful picture of a lasting, secure, safe, transparent relationship.

Time with Ourselves

When we talk about how a small, immersive community, such as a greenhouse, is characterized by time with ourselves, that may sound a bit strange.  What do we mean by spending time with ourselves?

Let’s go back to Season 2 and Heartview. Being a disciple means getting to know two people really, really well. Jesus and ourselves.  And to learn to love them both.

Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “But to love oneself in the divine sense is to love God, and truly to love another person is to help that person to love God…”[8]

As part of our spiritual formation, do our formative communities intentionally cultivate an environment where we can safely and gently explore our Eight Indicators, listening to and digging into the ideas and desires that govern our hearts? Have we gently but authentically revisited and dealt with our own stories?

Do we take the time to pay attention to our thought patterns?  When we talk to ourselves, what’s our tone?  What type of language do we use?  Do we treat ourselves with kindness, as an image-bearer of God, or do we treat ourselves harshly?

Emotions. Do we accept that our emotions are good gifts from God?  Are we taking the time to pay attention when we’re anxious or fearful, when we’re angry or sad or glad?

Do we take the time to assess our spiritual, emotional, and physical health?

What about our relationships?  As we just asked, are we spending time with people who seek our goodness?  If at least some of our discipleship is more caught than taught, are we spending time with people who, just by the nature of how they treat us, are forming us?

And on to our actions, our words, and how we relate to time and money.

Are we courageously curious about our indicators?  If we go on a spending spree on things we can’t afford or don’t need, are we courageously taking the time to ask why?  If we’re surprisingly irritated with our children, can we take a step back, take some time, and ask why?

We are not responsible for the harm that’s been done to us.  We are, however, responsible when that harm results in us harming others.

As author Jay Springer notes, “Always someone else has to suffer because I don’t know how to suffer; that is what it comes down to.”[9]

A formative community like a Greenhouse teaches, trains, and models Heartview in a safe, trusted environment.  It encourages people to take the time to understand how God has wired them and how their story impacts their hearts and their other three relationships.

Can Heartview be difficult? Yes.  Can it be messy? Yes.  Do we need to exercise great care and concern?  Yes.

But when we invite God into the ideas and desires of our hearts, we are engaging in authentic spiritual formation.

Time with Creation

And lastly, what characterizes a deep disciple in relation to their time spent with creation?

Creation can be defined a couple of ways, but when we’re talking about creation in context of the four relationships, we’re talking about nature and its derivatives. Culture is a derivative of creation.  It’s man forming governments, institutions, arts, and so on from the natural order.

God has placed us in our four relationships with two primary purposes: to love and to rule.  We love God, we love others, we love ourselves, and we steward creation and culture, which is in itself an act of love.

This is called the Cultural Commission or the Cultural Mandate, and it’s first found in Genesis 1:28. God created the world good, and he appointed mankind to populate it and to subdue it, to refine it, to mold it, to adapt it for His Kingdom purposes.

As rulers of creation, do we spend time subduing it?  Of course, we all do.  If you mow the lawn, you’re subduing creation.  Bake a cake?  You’re making something beautiful and tasty out of independent ingredients.  You are integrating what is dis-integrated.

Writing software?  Ruling creation.  Fixing a broken fence?  Ruling creation.  Growing food?  Ruling creation.  Making music?  Ruling creation.  You’re taking notes and sounds that are otherwise independent and chaotic and bringing them into a beautiful, organized, sonic work of art.  Building roads and bridges, developing financial reports, making someone breakfast, managing a project, writing a novel, raising your kids, creating a flower bouquet, knitting a blanket – all aspects of our relationship with creation as we rule and steward it on behalf of and in relation to our King.

In modern Christianity, we tend to think we’re only stewarding creation and culture if we’re in some sort of ministry, running for public office, or building a house with Habitat for Humanity.  We can’t possibly be ruling creation unless it’s some sort of “Christian” activity.  All those things are good, and they’re a part of bringing order and beauty from disorder and chaos, but a deep disciple recognizes the beauty of ruling creation in the mundane.  And we celebrate it, and we honor it.

It’s difficult in the West right now because we’ve unconsciously accepted the idea of “Christian vs. secular.”  Christian music and secular music. Christian bookstores and secular bookstores.  Christian organizations and secular organizations.

Not to overstate the obvious, but the only thing that can truly be “Christian” is a person. And if we accept Psalm 24:1 (The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world and those we dwell in it), then there is no such thing as “secular.”  It’s all sacred. It all belongs to God.

Our purpose, then, is to rule and steward creation wherever we are.  We’re characterized by the time we spend making order out of disorder, bringing healing to hurt, providing structure from disorganization, integration where there’s disintegration, beauty from ashes, overcoming evil with good.

The Bible is filled with all sorts of “re” words: redeem, renew, reconcile, restore, refine, reborn.  As rulers of creation, we bring order and, because of sin, we work to fix what’s been broken.  We reverse the effects of sin with our King, whether it’s in our hearts, our marriages, our families, our jobs, our communities, or in what we call the broader Seven Mountains of Culture: perhaps in government, the arts, or business.

Wrapping Up Time

Time is a crucial element of our spiritual formation. A deep disciple relates to God through spiritual disciplines and our other three relationships.  And we recognize God is calling us, inviting us, speaking to us in a myriad of ways.

A deep disciple seeks out relationships with people who remind her of Jesus. Sometimes discipleship is more caught than taught.

A deep disciple engages his own story, his own wounds, with courageous curiosity, understanding that his depth of relationship with God is directly related to his relationship with himself.

And a deep disciple recognizes there is no “secular.”  There is only sacred. We honor, celebrate, and look for opportunities to rule and steward it for the benefit of others, and to the glory of its Creator, even in the mundane. Jesus invites us to continuous acts of “re”: redeem, restore, reconcile, refine, renew.  Not only with people, but with His creation and culture.

[1] Wilder & Hendricks. The Other Half of Church, p. 22. Moody.

[2] Willard, D. (1998.) The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (p. 223). Williams Collins.

[3] Thompson, C. (2010). Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections Between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices that can Transform your Life and Relationship (p. 24). Tyndale Momentum.

^[4] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ec 7:2). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

[5] Coleman, R. (1998). The Master Plan of Discipleship (p. 57). Revell.

[6] Coleman, R. Master Plan of Discipleship (p. 59). Revell.

[7] Coleman, R. Master Plan of Discipleship (p. 60). Revell.

[8] Kapic, K.(2022). You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (p. 63). Brazos Press.

[9] Springer, J. (2018). Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing (p. 32).  NavPress.